WWII planes bring back memories for veterans in Alabama

Friday

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Walking through a B-17 bomber Thursday afternoon sent shivers down James Traylor's spine — and with good reason.

The last time he set foot on one of those planes, it was shot out of the sky during an Aug. 17, 1943 raid on ball bearings factories in Schweinfurt, Germany.

Traylor managed to bail out as the plane was going down. "I landed in a little village and had to walk about 100 yards to the jailhouse," he said with a chuckle.

A fully restored Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was one of three planes on display Thursday — along with a Consolidated B-24 Liberator and a North American B-25 Mitchell. The vintage aircraft were at Montgomery Aviation next to Dannelly Field as part of a stop on the Wings of Freedom Tour.

The tour, organized by the Stow, Mass.-based Collings Foundation, began in 1989 and flies fully restored World War II-era airplanes around the country, stopping for a few days at a time in various cities to let people walk through the planes and even take a flight.

The tour visits about 120 cities a year, said Hunter Chaney, director of marketing for the nonprofit organization. The planes arrived in Montgomery on Wednesday afternoon and were scheduled to depart Friday around noon.

The foundation's goal is twofold: to honor the veterans and let them know they haven't been forgotten, and to educate visitors about the planes and World War II.

Traylor, after his capture, was taken to Stalag 17B, a prisoner of war camp near the Austrian border where more than 4,000 captured American non-commissioned officers were held. They were freed in April 1945.

While touring the B-17 heavy bomber Thursday, Traylor, who lives in Millbrook, ran into a friend and fellow former Stalag POW, Roy McGinnis. The two 85-year-old veterans met at a Montgomery POW meeting 10 or 15 years ago.

McGinnis, who lives in Montgomery, was a 20-year-old waist gunner when he was in a B-17 that was shot down several months after Traylor's, on October 14, 1943, also over Schweinfurt. The date is now known as "Black Thursday" because about 60 U.S. Air Force planes were lost over Germany that day.

McGinnis and the nine other members of the crew went down with their plane, under a barrage of German fighter fire. When the plane crashed in a pasture, all aboard were still alive but covered with mud and water.

"I looked down and thought it was blood. I thought I was bleeding all over," McGinnis said. "I was scared to death."

He and the rest of the plane's crew were quickly captured by the Germans and taken to Stalag.

McGinnis said the Germans fed them potatoes, soup "full of worms and cabbage" and hard, dark bread. But both he and Traylor said they were not generally treated badly, in part because the guards were members of the Luftwaffe, the German air force, and felt a sort of bond with the members of the U.S. Air Force.

"Unless the guard's hometown had been bombed the night before or something of that nature, the treatment was half decent," Traylor said.

More than 60 years later, McGinnis doesn't hold a grudge against the Germans. In fact, Hilde, his wife of 14 years, was born in Germany and lived in Berlin during the war. She moved to Montgomery with her first husband, who was in the American military, and the two met at a grief support group at church following the deaths of her first husband and his second wife.

"I'm glad we weren't bombing Berlin before I got shot down or she might hold that against me," McGinnis joked.

McGinnis and Traylor both served in the U.S. Air Force for decades after World War II and said they enjoy sharing their stories with younger generations who might not be familiar with the history of that period.

"What we want to do with the tour is remind people of their heritage, specifically to remind people of the men and women who fought in World War II, and to teach the history in a very tactile manner," Chaney said. "We hope that it prompts people to want to learn more about this time in history."

The B-17 is one of only nine of its type in flying condition in the U.S., while the B-24 is the only remaining example of its kind in flying condition in the world, and the B-25 is only one of a handful in flying condition, Chaney said.

Veterans like McGinnis and Traylor come to see the planes at stops around the country, which only adds to the visitor's experience, Chaney said.

"When you're able to talk with these folks and tour through the aircraft, it becomes a history lesson that is very emotional," he said. "It's a rare occurrence to be able to hear stories like that these days. A lot of that generation has passed."

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